- Life Unplugged – Meleah Bowles & Elise Williams Rikard
Life Unplugged makes digital detox easy with alternative activities and better ways to feel connected to your friends, family and the world around you. This workbook guides you through ways to de-stress, cultivate mindfulness and improve your mood and health while finding balance and joy in your daily life. It’s the mini vacation without the extra cost of actually going away and all the wellness benefits you need for a more fulfilling lifestyle.
- Rabbits For Food – Binnie Kirshenbaum
While dining out with her husband and friends, Bunny—an acerbic, mordantly witty and clinically depressed writer—fully unravels. Her breakdown lands her in the psych ward of a prestigious New York hospital where she passes time chronicling the lives of her fellow ‘lunatics’. Propelled by razor-sharp comic timing and rife with pinpoint insights, Rabbits for Food examines what it means to succeed and fail, and shows how art can lead us out of—or into— the depths of disconsolate loneliness and piercing grief.
- Happiness, As Such – Natalia Ginzburg
Michele is the beloved only son of a large, dysfunctional family in 1970s Italy. Headstrong and independent, he has disappeared to London without explanation. Back in Italy, his father lies dying. Michele’s departure sets forth a series of events that will bring together everyone in his life. The story of the Prodigal Son turned on its head, Happiness, As Such is a short, absurdly funny novel-in-letters about complicated families and missed connections.
- This Is Happiness – Niall Williams
Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years. Rain is a condition of living. But now, just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of electricity, the rain clouds are lifting. This tender portrait of a community, its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs, is a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do and the transforming light they throw onto our world.
- Be My Guest – Priya Basil
We live in a world where some have too much and others not enough, where immigrants and refugees are both welcomed and vilified, and where most of us spend less and less time cooking and eating together. Priya Basil invites us to explore the meaning and limits of hospitality today, and, in doing so, makes a passionate plea for a kinder, more welcoming realisation that we have more in common than divides us.
- Reef Life – Callum Roberts
Reef Life is a marine science memoir—the story of how one of the world’s pre-eminent marine conservation scientists fell in love with coral reefs. From the moment Callum Roberts first cleared his goggles, he’s never looked back, diving and researching all over the world in a thirty-year career that includes Australia’s imperilled Great Barrier Reef.
His stories are astonishing, lyrical and laced with a wonderful wry humour—and they allow us privileged access to, and understanding of, the science of our oceans and reefs.
- Letter to My Younger Self – Jane Graham & The Big Issue
If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would it say? The Big Issue asked that and some of the most brilliant people from the worlds of entertainment, politics, food, sport and business responded, including Paul McCartney, Jamie Oliver, Rod Stewart, Margaret Atwood, Buzz Aldrin, Tracey Emin, Michael Palin and Dionne Warwick. Letter to My Younger Self is a moving, inspiring and powerful insight into the wisdom that age brings and how you can use this knowledge to shape your future.
- How To Teach Philosophy To Your Dog – Anthony McGowan
Taking a lead from his Maltese terrier Monty’s canine antics, McGowan takes us on a hilarious and enlightening jaunt through the major debates of philosophy. Will Kant convince Monty to stop stealing cheesecake? How long will he put up with Socrates poking holes in every argument? In this uniquely entertaining take on morality and ethics, the dutiful duo set out to uncover who, if anyone, has the right end of the ethical stick and who can show how best to live one’s life.
- Paris Or Die – Jayne Tuttle
The city of light, it seems, has its own plans for Jayne. Drawn there in an entirely unforeseen way, she finds herself in a vibrant and dizzying neighbourhood, living in a former monastery, studying at a famous theatre school, falling in love with a Frenchman too beautiful to be real.
She will forget her past and disappear into the culture if it kills her. And one strange night, it nearly does. Sharp, funny and unflinchingly honest, Jayne Tuttle’s writing lifts you off the page and into a Paris far beyond the postcards.
Paris or Die is a headlong plunge into not just life in Paris, but life itself.
- Slow Travel – Penny Watson
It can be challenging to travel in the modern world without falling for the temptations of fast planes, cheap airlines, last-minute tickets, quick-fix travel apps and overzealous tour operators. To actually take a back seat and allow yourself time to embrace the ebb and flow of travel requires a more thoughtful and philosophical way of journeying.
Slow Travel is a beautifully designed and practical compendium of places, activities, tours and experiences that will inspire you to get on the road in your own time and on your own terms. In this fast-paced world, it’s worth adjusting your vacation time to a pace we can all strive to keep up with.
- San Francisco Pocket Precincts – Sam Trezise
San Francisco is a city that needs little introduction. Author Sam Trezise highlights the very best of the Golden City, paying homage in equal parts to the iconic places and current trends that make this city so progressive.
Discover the heart of the downtown area with its stalwart diners and dive bars, take a cable car across the city’s undulating streets, or let the effects of Silicon Valley and tech giants like Google sink in while you shop in some of the best high-end designer shops and vintage stores to be found anywhere in the US.
San Francisco Pocket Precincts is your curated guide to the city’s best cultural, shopping, eating and drinking experiences, and its most accessible and budget-friendly choices.
- Singapore Pocket Precincts – Shawn Low And Wyn-Lyn Tan
Singapore squeezes a lot into its small land area – you can walk through the famous ‘supertrees’ of Gardens by the Bay, catch a glimpse of the giant pandas at Singapore Zoo, grab a Michelin-starred dish in a hawker centre, and browse through the shops at Jewel Changi Airport, all within a relatively easy distance.
Singapore Pocket Precincts is your curated guide to Singapore’s best cultural, shopping, eating and drinking experiences, and its most accessible and budget-friendly choices. Slip this guide into your pocket and head off on an adventure, experiencing the most vibrant range of places in Singapore, like a local.
- Daily Oracle – Jerico Mandybur
With deep wisdom, cosmic insight and a wicked sense of humour, Daily Oracle is magical advice-giver that offers its readers refreshing insight and guidance on how to navigate all and any of life’s curveballs – from everyday decisions to sticky spots to real-deal challenges.
- Art and Fiesta in Mexico City – Cristina Alonso
In 2016 The New York Times listed Mexico City as the number one place to go in the world. With nearly 40 million tourists visiting the country in 2017, tourism to Mexico is booming.
Art and Fiesta in Mexico City is your comprehensive guide to navigate the city’s seemingly endless cultural attractions, eclectic food and drinks scene, shops, galleries and legendary markets. From major sights to recently opened venues that showcase the city’s young and vibrant energy, author Cristina Alonso will ensure you make the most of your visit and then be eager to return to the most progressive city in Latin America.
- Wanderlust in Berlin – Julian Tompkin
According to the locals, Berlin is a city that never is but is always becoming. Indeed, with its heady elixir of history, culture and indulgence, the German capital is constantly reinventing itself, making it a curious destination for travellers over the centuries. Wanderlust in Berlin unlocks this enthralling city, taking you to the very best places in its patchwork of uniquely independent boroughs.
From its culinary renaissance, maverick coffee culture and notorious bar scene through to its edgy cultural offerings, distinguished museums and stirring history, this guide is an insider’s compendium that reveals the best of Berlin, whether you have a few days to discover the city or more time to wander around.
